On December 29, 2006, my life partner, Karen Wilkie, and I ascended the standard southern route up Cerro Toco. Great hike to a high elevation summit that provides excellent views. We had been hiking at high elevations (up to 5000m) for the previous week, so starting the hike around 5000 metres wasn't a problem for us. Chile is an incredibly beautiful country with very friendly inhabitants; it rocks!

Many tour agencies in San Pedro offered this climb but using the excellent directions on summitpost we hired a car and climbed it alone. We had 4 days of hiking in San Pedro plus one hour at Laguna Miscanti so I don't think we were fully acclimatized but we still made it. Took 2 hours 20 minutes from the old mining shed, 45 minutes to descend.

After being told we couldn't climb any mountains in Chile without a permit, and they wouldn't issue permits because of the weather, we went to San Pedro and found out permits weren't needed. We drove up as far as possible until we were stopped by the fresh snow (about an hour's hike to the mining camp) and then hiked up from there, about 3 1/2 hours up and 1 1/2 down. Heavy clouds blowing in and out made for limited but beautiful views.